Guest Column: Restoring America to its founding principles

We have strayed far from the republic our founders gave us. Now, more than ever, we should think about those great men who set us on this path—the signers of the Declaration of Independence. They knew that King George would consider their involvement treason.

Now, we find ourselves faced with the very same situation—a government refusing to answer our petitions for redress. How much will we endure? At what point will we finally say enough is enough?

We elect our representatives by a democratic majority process, but our Constitution lays down the design for a republican form of government. Democracy is merely tyranny of the majority. We, however, are born with unalienable rights, given to us by our Creator. No elected official has the right to vote away our individual, guaranteed, unalienable rights. No majority can violate our personal, individual rights. Thus, our republican form of government. The Constitution provides the chains that bind our government—not the people! We are unique in the world. No other country in the world has the governing documents that we hold so dear, but the people of the world see us as the ultimate benchmark. They are watching us—not our government, but you and me, to see what we are going to do about the dire situation in which we now find ourselves.

Our Constitution is being violated at every turn by the criminals in Washington, D.C. Every time they vote to take away or dilute your inalienable rights, they are breaking the law!

We have fraudulent electronic voting, unconstitutional financial bailouts and undeclared wars in the Middle East. There are constant assaults on our Second Amendment rights. We have the SPP—Security and Prosperity Partnership with Mexico and Canada—effectively a springboard to the North American Union. We have the Federal Reserve refusing to be accountable to Congress and a Congress refusing to hold them accountable. We have seen our right to privacy eroded by the Patriot Act.

And now, waiting in the wings, we have H.R. 2454: American Clean Energy andSecurityAct of 2009, which includes the ominous “cap and trade.” There is the CIFTA Treaty, signed by Clinton but never enacted, being resurrected, which would call for a universal gun registration database. We have S. 1261, the PASS act—nothing more than a redo of Real ID passed in 2005 but opposed by 24 states, giving the federal government control of your state driver’s license.

Do not be deluded into thinking that we can vote our way out of this mess. We must do something now to make certain our representatives obey our demand that they uphold their oath to support the Constitution.

The right to petition the government for redress of grievances is in the First Amendment. The We The People organization has been petitioning the government for 19 years, and to this day the government has refused to answer.

The logical next step is to convene a Continental Congress in the spirit of the 1774 Continental Congress. Three delegates from each state and the District of Columbia will convene for two to four weeks this year in November to discuss the repeated abuses of the Constitution and the repeated failure of the government to address the petitions for redress. The goal is for them to come up with recommendations as to what we, the American people, must do to return to our constitutional republic.

The delegates will hold the same status in history that the founding fathers hold in our hearts. The people who are selected as delegates should understand not only the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, but also the fundamental philosophical principles upon which our Constitution is based—individual rights and private property. We must find and nominate delegates with quality of substance and depth of personality who have the standing to be defenders of liberty. No elected official will be eligible for a delegate position.

You will vote by paper ballot Oct. 10 for the delegates from your state.

The peaceful revolution that is happening right now will transform to a new level with the Continental Congress in November. Get off the sidelines, go to www.givemeliberty.org and join the fight to save our republic!

Please note that Continental Congress is not a constitutional convention widely known as a con-con. A con-con is convened with the intent to change the constitution. We DO NOT SUPPORT OR ADVOCATE A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION known as a con-con, and Continental Congress 2009 is never referred to as a con-con.

Rogene Hamilton, a Winnebago County resident, is a volunteer for We The People Congress.